New Lucy Letby details

[Mrsdoyler]

Did you see today in the news that LucyLetby originally failed her nursing training.

Reason: Lack of empathy

The jury should have been looking for reasonable doubt not thinking about the balance of probabilities. The case against Letby for Baby C was only brought on the basis of the X-ray. Without it, the prosecution pathologist would not have supported a case for murder. The case should never have been brought given that Letby could not have been responsible for anything that happened on the day before she came on shift.
On the insulin, the prosecution argued simultaneously that it was Letby because she was there but also that it was Letby when she wasn’t there. So Letby can commit a crime when she’s not there but nobody else can. Doubts have been raised not only on the test but the quantity of insulin required - reasonable doubts.
It really makes no sense for LL to risk using insulin when she had apparently already murdered Baby A in clear view of at least three people and leaving no trace.
As for “many if not all staff are saying they did not think at the time that these babies were being murdered” well no because other explanations were and are more credible than the prosecution case.

Appeal court judges are a law unto themselves.

And it's also very common among nurses etc who are not psychopaths!

One set of parents referred to another nurse who was cold and who came up to them at an inappropriate time to tell them something. The mother of that baby turned to her husband that night and said that that nurse had done something to their baby deliberately to harm them. That was the only account where a parent considered deliberate harm immediately afterwards, and yet it was focused on a different nurse because of her demeanor. Both of those parents said Letby was warm and empathetic.

If you want to be insulting about it then we could also say the same about those who are convinced she is guilty despite everything else that has come out.

Within a very short time of the reporting restrictions being lifted there were many experts expressing doubts. When does that happen in any case? Never

And yet the guilty side tell themselves it's because she's blonde and white, they just refuse to even entertain the idea that other experts were concerned about the evidence and the theories that were put forward.

No one would think that there was a chance this was a miscarriage of justice if the evidence had been stronger and more convincing.

Also I think very few fixate on granular pieces of the case at all, instead it's exactly like your first sentence for the potential miscarriage of justice side and people are focusing on many other factors which add up to the full picture.

Within a very short time of the reporting restrictions being lifted there were many experts expressing doubts. When does that happen in any case? Never

Well if these “experts” (are we talking about the likes of tv personality Judge Rinder?) get together and find some strong evidence of her innocence/that the court case was botched they’ll be forced to look at it again wont they? Why hasn’t that happened yet?

But so far it’s been a lot of talk and no action…a lot of people with an agenda (people in the public eye/with a podcast etc to promote) want to have their say. It doesn’t really mean diddly squat.

Why would all these people in the medical and judiciary profession collude to put an innocent young woman behind bars for the rest of her life? Do you not think it is taken extremely seriously and that everything was gone over with a fine-toothed comb?

Experts can say whatever they like - they need to put their money where their mouth is. Where were they during the court case? It’s my understanding her defence team wouldn’t put the one expert willing to give evidence on the stand bc it would’ve further harmed her case?

People are going to pick holes in the evidence and come up with conspiracy theories about it all being a big smoke and mirrors act to deflect from the problems in the hospital simply because it’s so shocking to accept that this young woman chose to murder babies. It’s so rare for this to happen that people cannot fathom that it must be true, that someone could be so evil.

If down the line she gets a retrial with fresh evidence and is found not guilty il be as horrified as anyone else. I don’t believe it will happen though.

Cases of medical murder stand and fall on the medical data. If there is no evidence of intentional harm there is no case, and there is none.

Child C post mortem:

1a. Widespread hypoxic ischaemic damage to heart
1b. Immaturity of lung
1c. Severe maternal vascular under perfusion
30 week gestation severe IUGR, AEDF and oligohydramnios. Delayed cord clamping. Brief period of ventilation. UVC displaced on handling. Raised lactate and infection markers. Never opened bowels and bile stained aspirates.

"Being absolutely open and honest, I never, ever considered that this death could have been from deliberate harm.""From my perspective when I saw the postmortem result and the immaturity of the baby's lungs I presumed that this was a death entirely consistent with prematurity."

Dr McCormack - Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist, Thirlwall Enquiry

On what planet is that a stable baby?

Well if these “experts” (are we talking about the likes of tv personality Judge Rinder?) get together and find some strong evidence of her innocence/that the court case was botched they’ll be forced to look at it again wont they? Why hasn’t that happened yet? @Dollybantree

This is exactly what is currently happening. Have you followed any of the recent developments?

Just going to post some relevant bits from the article I shared earlier:

Letby is being represented by a new barrister, Mark McDonald, and a number of specialists including leading neonatologists – doctors who specialise in treating premature babies – are voluntarily working with him* *on an application to the Criminal Cases Review Commission. Having examined the detail, these experts consider there are more plausible alternative causes of the babies’ deaths and collapses than those for which Letby was convicted.

Jane Hutton, a professor of statistics at the University of Warwick, said of the shift chart and other elements of the case: “It’s a large pile of crockery, much of which is broken. Such a pile does not hold water, however big it is.”

Statisticians have expressed such serious concerns that the Royal Statistical Society (RSS) is expected to make a statement in the coming weeks.

The RSS notably intervened previously in 2001, when Green was its president, about the statistics used to prosecute Sally Clark, who was convicted of murdering two of her children. Those criticisms helped to overturn her convictions as well as those of Angela Cannings and Donna Anthony, who had also been wrongly convicted of killing their children, verdicts the court of appeal had upheld.

Dr Mike Hall, a retired consultant neonatologist and visiting professor in neonatal medicine, advised Letby’s legal defence team but was not called to give evidence at the trial. He said: “I feel a particular sense of injustice about Baby C because all four main prosecution witnesses [who gave evidence about the child] either directly or indirectly led the jury to believe that part of the cause of the demise was evidence from an X-ray taken on 12 June 2015. Letby had never been involved with that baby prior to that X-ray.”

………

There’s more info elsewhere too about expert concerns - and many of these people are at the absolute peak of their careers, with their professional reputations at stake if they are wrong. They must be fairly confident.

The doubts about the evidence wouldn’t have got the attention they have if they were just coming from some idiot with a podcast, as you claim!

Because it's literally only been 3.5 months since reporting restrictions were lifted, that's why.
It takes time to get the robust submission ready.
They don't just go and tell the CRCC they have concerns. There will have to be reports made and so on.

Also there were some who said that her previous legal team didn't respond to any offers for help, Mark Mcdonald only took over a month ago!

.

Baby C was born @ 30 weeks + 1 day not 37 weeks @Quitelikeit

Look at the post mortem to see how sick that baby actually was.

Read Dr McCormack’s further comments:

”I knew that this baby was very sick. The baby was very small and that is a baby for me that when I see that postmortem, I would have said to myself, that is typical with my experience with that sort of outcome.

"In Baby C's case there was a postmortem report that actually had a cause of death, and I know there is some debate about the interpretation. It's not as if the pathology is saying this was unexplained."

I find it interesting, she was failed for lack of empathy. I wonder what she did/said that made her mentor think that. It's not something you can measure. But she must've had a reason.

Not even - would it only be retired and long-term unemployed people on the LL jury, given the trial length? If so you would probably get a much better skills, understanding and experience mix by selecting 12 randos from Tesco

It is something that can be measured from a training perspective, but that's very difference from them actually measuring the empathy of the individual, which is what people seem to be jumping too.

Here's a leaflet from the Irish health service and presumably the NHS is similar and presumably they are watched and assessed on how well thy 'demonstrate' empathy, it doesn't necessarily have to be who they are as a person.

https://www.hse.ie/eng/about/our-health-service/healthcare-communication/nhcp-demonstrating-empathy.pdf

https://thirlwall.public-inquiry.uk/wp-content/uploads/thirlwall-evidence/INQ0014042_163-165_170-171.pdf
This seems to be the assessment that has been simplified to ‘cold’ and ‘lacking empathy’

Is it just this paragraph which is relevant or am I missing something?

Lucy does display more confident communication skills with children and families and does show increased knowledge when answering some questions and reassuring parents. This does need to be more consistent as Lucy can also display limited communication skills when dealing with unexpected situations. She needs more experience at observing at picking up on non-verbal signs of anxiety/distress from parents and recognising when to change her approach. E.g. child with developmental delay and Sa02 monitoring. Lucy did recognise the importance of obtaining a baseline Sa02 but a member of staff had to step in as child and family were increasingly distressed. Lucy should have initiated distraction techniques and involved the play specialist to help alleviate the anxiety.

Sarah Knapton has done an excellent job summarising the problems with the insulin cases published today:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/18/insulin-tests-convict-letby-cannot-be-relied-upon/

Reader: http://archive.today/

Not included in the article but very interesting is the opinion of Prof Stephen O’Rahilly, Director of the MRC Metabolic Diseases Unit, University of Cambridge, who said:

In addition to antibody based interferences one also needs to consider proinsulin. In a recent case we were involved in patents were under serious criminal investigation until we proved that huge quantities of endogenous proinsulin were present in the child's serum. The insulin assay used cross-reacted with this but the C peptide assay didn't, leading to the erroneous conclusion of factitious disease.

There’s a bit more in the oral testimony I’ve just found
thirlwall.public-inquiry.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Thirlwall-Inquiry-15-October-2024.pdf

Yes I just meant from the time when she failed 'due to being cold and lacking empathy' like so many places are reporting.

Yes. I think it’s just that.

I didn't find Anna Milans testimony in the inquiry particularly convincing.
Sounded like she was saying even though they suggested that they be sent for more tests they didn't really need to be done because the tests matched the clinical picture...that the babies were hypoglycemic.
But of course there could be other reasons why they were hypoglycemic.

The last section of the article you posted which says the c-peptide levels aren't that unusual is very interesting, I hadn't heard that part before. Will have to read a bit more.

@Mirabai for those few coming out saying the insulin evidence was unreliable many other medical professionals disagree

Im sure Prof Hind was reliable

Well done the Telegraph and Sarah Knapton.
When I am able to look at the comments under their live reporting of Thirlwall, it is overwhelmingly critical of the verdicts.

Plenty disagree, but it's all very interesting because when people first started discussing the case the Insulin cases were the most difficult ones for people to explain but slowly it seems that people are now expressing doubts about them.